Friday, December 26, 2014

Twelve Days of Christmas basket and ideas

Yesterday was Christmas Day and the first day of Christmas! So, chronologically, that makes today the second day of Christmas!! Keep on celebrating!

For the past several years, we have celebrated each of the twelve days by singing the song, doing the motions (you cannot forget to do those!!), and reading what each day symbolizes in our faith. We had a grand celebration and dinner at the end of the twelve days, with food items to go with each day's theme. It was always so much fun to see what they remembered at the end of the Twelve Days, not only the fun gift but also the spiritual gift symbolized.

When we drew names for my family's Christmas to swap gifts, I asked my sister if they would like a Twelve Days of Christmas themed basket. When she said "yes", I was so excited to share this beautiful tradition of ours and to put it together. As I was buying gifts for their basket, I thought some of the items would be great for our own family. So when my sister-in-law asked for ideas our family, I told her a Twelve Days basket would be great for us too. It's so nice when it works out so beautifully that way - many of the same gifts we bought and gave away, we received for our own family! :)

Here is a look at what we put in the Twelve Days of Christmas themed basket and how we packaged it...

Items for each of the twelve days

(we wrapped each of these in brown paper and labeled them with their day number and the date it could be opened)

(a partridge in a PEAR tree)

(two turtle DOVES)

(chicken noodle soup for the three French HENS)

(bugles look like megaphones to represent the CALLING birds and four evangelists proclaiming the Good News)

(five RING pops --- yeah, these are skeleton ring pops.... we forgot to get these out and give them away at Halloween time, but remembered them for when we needed RING pops at Christmas time- lol!)

(silly putty EGGS for the six geese-a-laying)

(a fun game with a SWIMMING Nemo on it to help us remember the seven swans-a-SWIMMING)

(goat's MILK soap and MILK MAIDS caramels)

(a pirourette is a ballet DANCE move)

(These chips look like little crowns and the LORDS-a-leaping are kings and all kings wear crowns. We put a note on this item to save and eat it with day 11's item.)

(salsa is a PIPING hot dip)

(bongos = DRUMS)

Ornaments

Jesse Tree Treasures on Etsy created and sells a beautiful set of ornaments to hang on your tree on each of the days.

Here is a beautiful puzzle and you have twelve days to complete it as a family!

Lapbook

We made this lapbook many years ago and it has been THE staple to help us remember the symbolization of each day, so we made up another one for the gift basket.

Throw it all in a laundry basket (I am way too practical - who can have enough laundry baskets??) and top it off with a soft velvety blanket (you can never have too many blankets!), and VIOLA, there you have a fun and faith-filled Twelve Days of Christmas basket!!

Want a printable for the kids to color and keep track of each day as you celebrate it?? Seton Magazine shared one this morning - how convenient!! Isn't it beautiful!

About Me

I am married to my high school sweetheart/best friend and am a young momma of 9 amazing kids doing my best to live the Faith and raise them up as saints-in-the-making!! It's a tough job but a blessed one indeed!